Change is Hard
by Betsy86
Summary: He knew. Every time he looked at that damn avocado tree, he knew. He shouldn't have walked away. Logan-centric. Implied Lit.


**I wrote this _ages_ ago. Seriously. I just found the pages in the back of my planner. I dunno if I like it. But, I rarely like anything I write. lol**

**Not mine, etc. You know the drill.  
**

_

* * *

I listened when they told me _  
_If she burns you, let her go. _  
_Change is hard, I should know_

_~ She & Him

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_

He knew.

Every time he looked at that _damn_ avocado tree, he knew. He shouldn't have walked away.

She changed him and it was hard. But he fell and then walked away and changing _back_, he found was much much harder.

But, damn it, he was a Huntzberger. And Huntzbergers don't take rejection well. Not that she had rejected _him_, he thinks back. Just marriage. For now.

So he lost her. He tried her cell a few times, but she's changed her number and he only got the pre-recorded message tell him the number was no longer in use.

He _can't_ ask her family. Her mother never warmed to him and her grandparents had gotten cooler towards him. At a recent Christmas party he received Emily's cold shoulder, and it was a force to be reckoned with.

But, he _listened_. At the party, he listened. He found out she was on the campaign trail. Online articles. He followed her work. Contemplated following_ her_.

But, there was work and his grown up life to deal with. Her online words would have to do, for now. He read them all, imagining her tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth. Her soft whisper, as she re-read her work (her own brand of proof reading).

But then the articles stopped, after the nomination was announced. Someone else was covering the campaign. The loss in this quasi-connection _stung_.

Four months after, he found himself back in Connecticut. Another party, his father's sixtieth. The Gilmores were in attendance. Not so cold. _Progress_.

He listened again. Philadelphia. She had moved to Philadelphia to work at the Inquirer.

He left the following morning, losing his coat the minute he stepped of the plane, the California sun still warm in October.

He lasted a week before flying back east. City of Brotherly Love. He arrived mid-evening.

Tomorrow, he decided. He would go find her the following day at the paper.

But, right then, he needed a drink. He found the nearest bar to his hotel, took a seat at the counter and ordered a scotch.

The place was pretty much empty. A few couples and two guys in a booth. The guys were arguing. Loudly. Arguing about Rand. He smiled, thinking she would love to throw her two cents into this, but the smile dropped and he downed his drink when he realised he had no idea _what_ her two cents would be.

Happenstance. He never believed in luck or chance or fate. But there _she_ was. In his random choice of bar.

He heard her before he saw her.

"You jerk!"

He froze and slowly lifted his eye, catching sight of her in the mirror behind the bar.

She wasn't talking to, or about_ him_.

She was talking to the guy beside her, who looked familiar, though he couldn't _quite_ place the face.

"I said no presents." She frowned and the guy wrapped his arm around her shoulder and whispered in her ear, making her turn a deep shade of red that he recognised. But the smile on her face was brighter than _any _he could recall.

They joined the two in the booth. She agreed with the black guy. "Rand is a genius."

He agreed with the other. "If genius suddenly means a total whack-job. Rand was a hack."

Logan squinted into the mirror to see them. Despite their heated argument, the guy was running his thumb along the inside of her wrist and she was smiling up at him.

The black guy stood and she called after him. "Chris, order me some fries, please? I'm starving!" He rolled his eyes and headed to the bar.

"Another round." He nodded to the bartender. "Jess'll have his usual. And an order of fries and a Manhattan for the birthday girl."

He set three beers on the bar and said "I bring Rory's over in a minute." The beers and Chris retreated back to their table.

_Her birthday_. It was her birthday and he didn't remember. He finished his drink and the bartender offered another. He declined it and threw a fifty on the bar. As he reached the door, he glaced back at her and saw that she was clearly at ease with these people. _Happy_.

He remembered then, the guy, Jess was the jerk who showed up right before they had broken up at Yale.

He never thought _their_ story was over. That they would be 'Logan and Rory' _again_.

He still _loved_ her.

But she moved on. She changed.

He left her, but he _never_ changed.

And _that's_ the hardest part.

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**Review? Pretty please? With a cherry on top? **

**Oh, and I _slightly_ changed the lyrics at the top. Well, I changed the pronouns from male to female. Just to fit Logan PoV. :)  
**


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